so excited to see this thread! I rarely watch TV, and it so happened I found the no reservations marathon- it was meant to be!!! I was GLUED to the tv for hours. LOVE THIS SHOW! Livin' here in boring Kansas, I get so tired of the normal foods blah blah blah. I absolutely love learning about foods and people from other cultures. I am not anti-american by any means, but seeing them live off the land, carry on traditions, and their heritage, "eat local", strange as some of it may seem, was a breath of fresh air to me. That is a part of my life I truly miss living in the city now after growing up on a farm. ok, I will stop rambling, I gotta go check the tv listings. I may have to check out that "scheduling life around the tv" thing so many people swear by..... but I am going to go hunt down some new cookbooks first though! I am sure I will have wonderful luck finding all these exotic ingredients at my local, friendly Kansas Wal-mart- NOT

I like Anthony Bourdain for a couple of reasons - he actually tries the local cuisine of every culture he visits ... and he's not going for the "tourist" food - he's delving into the real stuff. It might be gross, it might make him ill, it might require the consumption of mass quantities of the local alcoholoc beverage or a pack of cigs to remove the taste from his mouth ... but his crude, rude and often needs to have explatives deleted impression is refreshing compared to the over exposure of Ray-Ray saying, "How Yummy is that!" to everything she sees on a menu.

Another guy I like is Pete Luckett - "The Food Hunter" aka the "International Greengrocer" ... unlike Bourdain he limits his explorations to fruits and vegetables (no worms or bugs on his menu) ... but, he is also willing to try everything and give his honest opinion. I'll never forget the episode when he was in Thailand and tried fresh durian ... he hurled right there on camera!

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"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain